


Betrayed

by JCapasso



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: F/M, mentioned prostitution, trigger warning: attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:29:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28904901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: Duke lets his trust for Audrey make him careless and she takes advantage of that and arrests him. Can they ever get past the betrayal?Set after season 3. Charlotte took Audrey's place in the barn and took the troubles away so that Audrey could live her life.
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Audrey Parker
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

Things had been tense since the barn came and went without Audrey. Since someone else had taken her place and taken the troubles away for her. She didn’t tell anyone that she had been deemed ‘redeemed’ enough according to Howard and the woman Charlotte. She intentionally didn’t ask what she needed to be redeemed for. She didn’t want to know. It clearly wasn’t her, Audrey, anyway. It did have her more than a little on edge though. It didn’t help that things between her partner and her best friend were getting more and more hostile either and neither of them would tell her why. Well Nathan wouldn’t at least. She believed Duke when he said that he didn’t know what the issue was now and that he was used to that kind of thing from Nathan. It was still driving her insane. 

On top of that, half the town was treating her like a pariah. First were the ones that still hated her for killing the rev and sticking up for the troubled. The guard didn’t treat her any better though, feeling like she had abandoned her responsibilities by not leaving with the barn. They weren’t openly hostile since the troubles had left anyway, but they clearly didn’t like her much either. Vince and Dave were still on her side at least and she wondered if she had Vince to thank for the lack of open hostilities. Other than them, Nathan, and Duke, the only people who still liked her were the ones that didn’t know about the troubles. And the ones that she’d helped that had nothing to do with the guard. 

Not that Nathan was all that good to her these days, clearly disapproving of her friendship with Duke. He was always reminding her about every bad thing he ever did. Even the things he had done for them like killing the guy with the organ stealing trouble. The more she tried to defend her friendship, the more Nathan seemed to take it personally. Oh, he tried to hide that it was personal of course. Pointing out that she was a cop and being friends with criminals wasn’t a good idea. She wasn’t an idiot though. It was always personal between Nathan and Duke. She could grudgingly admit that Nathan did have a point, but she refused to let it deter her. She could still do her job and keep her friendship and she refused to believe otherwise. Perhaps if she hadn’t been quite so stubborn about that fact, she would have put more thought into the situation she could be put in and come up with a better response. 

Audrey and Duke were hanging out on the Cape Rouge one evening, actually getting time to relax now that the troubles were gone and it wasn’t one disaster after another, when Duke got a phone call. “I gotta run up to the Gull for a few minutes. I’ll be back soon,” he told her, not at all worried about leaving her unattended on the boat. 

“Everything okay?” she asked worriedly. 

“Just a minor issue,” he waved her concern off. Some questions weren’t answerable for cops, no matter how close they were. He wouldn’t put her in that position. He went into the galley, under one of the cabinets, out of her view, and popped the secret latch for the false back, grabbing a handful of baggies and slipping them into his pocket. Unfortunately, he didn’t notice that the latch didn’t fully reconnect, having let his guard down a little bit too much. 

Once he was gone, Audrey’s curiosity got the better of her and under the guise of refilling her drink, she went into the galley to see what was in that cabinet. Since it wasn’t fully closed, she was able to see the seams and all it took was a bump for it to fall open and she was faced with a crapload of baggies of weed. Duke chose that moment to come back, and stopped short at the sight of her looking into his secret compartment, but he wasn’t too worried. Not until she stood up and turned to him, pulling her handcuffs off her belt. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back,” she said shakily. 

“You’re not serious,” Duke said incredulously. 

As much as part of Audrey just wanted to laugh this off and forget about it, all those conversations with Nathan about her job and how Duke would interfere with that were at the forefront of her mind right now. “I’m very serious,” she said, motioning him to turn around. The look of betrayal on his face as he did so was almost enough to stop her, but she’d gone too far to turn back now as she put the handcuffs on him and read him his rights. 

As she led him back up to the deck, Duke didn’t say another word. There was nothing to say. He had trusted her. Let her into his life. His boat. And then this. After everything they’d been through, he’d let his guard down, which he realized now was a big mistake. He just hoped his other hiding places held up through the search when they tore his boat apart. He could handle a few years for possession, but if they found everything, he would never see the light of day again. She sat him down on the futon while she called it in. The same futon they’d lounged on more times than he could count. Where he’d comforted her fears of disappearing. Where they’d talked and drank and played poker. And now he was sitting here handcuffed while she arrested him. 

Audrey forcibly reminded herself that this was her job. That she couldn’t just turn a blind eye when it was that obvious. That would make her a dirty cop and that was a line that she refused to cross. It didn’t make the betrayal in Duke’s eyes hurt any less. Or his silence. Duke was never silent. Even when Nathan had arrested him before, he was always full of quips and swagger and confidence, but now…he just looked defeated. She convinced herself that it was because unlike the other times, he knew they had him dead to rights. That was the only way she could go through with this. 

It didn’t take long for Nathan and a cruiser to get there and Nathan took over getting the uncharacteristically silent Duke into the back of the car. Once the car was on it’s way, he had Audrey show him the evidence and they got to work bagging it up. “We need to get a CSI team in here to go over this boat with a fine-tooth comb now that we have probable cause,” Nathan said with a smug smirk. He’d been waiting for this day for years. 

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Audrey said weakly as they finished bagging the evidence and went to take it back to the station. 

Once it was all catalogued the arrest was written up and charges filed, Nathan told Audrey, “I owe you an apology.”

“For what?” Audrey asked, sure that she didn’t want to know right now. 

“All the grief I’ve given you over your friendship with Duke. You could have told me that you were just trying to lull him into a false sense of security though. I would have gotten it and even applauded you for it. You’ll still be getting a commendation, of course, but…”

“I’m sorry, I’ve gotta go,” Audrey cut him off, brushing by him to rush out the door, managing to make it outside before her tears began to fall. She knew that she shouldn’t be driving like this, but if she didn’t Nathan would come after her. She made it back to the Gull in time to see the CSI team heading onto the Cape Rouge and she let her head fall onto the steering wheel as the guilt crushed her and pulled sobs from her throat. She managed to pull herself together after a few minutes though. Long enough to get up to her apartment without being spotted and lock herself in to continue her breakdown. 

She sat on her couch and pulled her knees to her chest. God, what had she done? Duke was going to go to jail because of her. Because he’d trusted her. Nathan’s assumption that she had just been playing Duke all along had been the last straw. And getting a commendation for it…how was she supposed to live with that? Duke’s eyes would haunt her for the rest of her life. Once he’d rejected her after Colorado, she’d put all her feelings for Duke back in a little box and shoved them to the back of her mind, but that box was spilling open now and she couldn’t figure out how to stop it and that was just making everything worse as she cried herself to sleep, right there on the couch.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Audrey woke up and got ready to go to work, trying to put it all behind her and move on. It was too late to fix anything now. The only way out was through. She tried to put it out of her mind, but since half of her paperwork involved Duke’s case, she wasn’t very successful. She accepted the congratulations of her colleagues, especially Nathan, with a tight smile that was so fake she couldn’t believe that everyone couldn’t see right through it. When lunchtime rolled around she couldn’t stay away from the holding cells any longer and headed down. She knew that it was going to rip her heart out, but she just /had/ to make sure he was okay. And apologize. 

Audrey walked in to see Duke laying back on the small cot, hands behind his head. She’d been told that he refused to say a word to anyone since he got here, so she was a little surprised when he spoke to her as soon as she stopped in front of his cell. 

“Come to take a look at your prize?” Duke asked coldly without even opening his eyes. He knew her footsteps and could smell her perfume as soon as she came in. “Since I’m getting transferred to county lockup tomorrow, don’t have a lot of chances to gloat.” 

“Duke, I’m sorry,” she said shakily, swallowing around the lump in her throat. 

“I hear you’re getting a commendation,” Duke said, not believing her for a second. “Congratulations.” 

“I don’t want it,” she admitted. 

“Why not? You earned it,” Duke said hauntedly, still not moving or opening his eyes. “People have been trying to catch me out forever, but you succeeded. It really was masterfully played. I’m impressed.” 

Audrey couldn’t take any more of this and she just turned and walked out, trying to blink the tears out of her eyes again. She had to fix this. Somehow. She got back to her office and took a few deep breaths as she tried to figure out what to do. The only thing she could think of would be crossing a line she swore to never cross though. Did it really matter anymore though? She couldn’t live with having done this to Duke. Crossing that line would at least be marginally easier to live with. She wished she’d never started this whole damn thing into motion. She should have just closed the compartment back up and ignored it. She shouldn’t have even started snooping in the first place. She should have left well enough alone. But she hadn’t. She’d gotten them here. She’d betrayed her best friend. The man she loved. No, this couldn’t stand. No matter what she had to do. 

This was one of those times where being in a small town would come in handy. The evidence lockup was unmanned during lunch and only a handful of people had keys. She took a few deep breaths to steel herself for what she was about to do and walked down the hall to the room, reminding herself that she had every right to be there and that there was nothing suspicious about it. Once she was inside and away from prying eyes, she got to work. She took the evidence box marked Crocker down and very carefully pried up the seal on one side. She pulled out all of the evidence bags and shoved them into her pockets, zipping up her coat and shoving them inside there too, making sure there was no sign of them. She just as carefully replaced the seal, knowing that it wouldn’t be perfect, but she got around that by turning the box around so that the unbroken one was facing out and then she slipped out of the room and to her car. 

She opened all the evidence bags and shoved the baggies of drugs into her trunk under the cover for her spare tire. She didn’t have time to get them out of here now so this would have to do until she either got an excuse to leave or the end of the day. Even if she did get caught, the chain of evidence was broken, and it would be considered tainted anyway. She hoped that she wouldn’t end up taking Duke’s place in the cell, but it wasn’t like she wouldn’t deserve it if she did. The now empty evidence bags were shoved into the trash can at the entrance to the building on her way back in and she was back at her desk as her lunch break ended. 

Audrey wondered how long it would be before the theft was discovered, not sure if she wanted it to be soon or not. On one hand, if it wasn’t until they went to transfer him in the morning, she would at least have time to get it out of here and hide it, but that would mean Duke spending an extra night in the cell. In the end, she decided that it wasn’t likely that she would be suspected anyway, especially if she was the one to sound the alarm about it, so she waited an hour or two before heading back to the evidence lockup, signing in at the desk this time, and ‘found’ the tampering. 

“The box is empty, and it looks like the seal has been pried up over here on this side,” Audrey pointed out to Nathan. 

Nathan took a few deep breaths for calm, before saying, “We need to start an investigation. It had to be someone on the inside. This is your top priority,” he told Audrey. 

Audrey almost laughed hysterically at the thought that she was being put in charge of investigating the crime that she’d committed. This was so far out of hand that she had no idea which way was up anymore. “Okay, I’ll get right on it,” she managed to keep a straight face. 

“At least the CSIs are still tearing apart the boat,” Nathan said with a sigh. 

“But we’ve lost our probable cause,” Audrey had to point out. “Doesn’t that mean that anything they find would be thrown out?” 

“Not necessarily,” Nathan shook his head. It probably would, but they still had a chance at least. He took out his phone to call them and see how close to finished they were, only to find that they were already wrapping up and had nothing. Not anything major anyway. A few minor customs violations that would get a find and a slap on the wrist at best, but that was all they found. 

To say that Nathan was seething was an understatement, and he immediately dragged Duke into an interrogation room, none too gently, and started grilling him on who he had inside the department. That hadn’t been what Audrey planned at all, but she couldn’t interfere. Until Duke figured out that they had nothing on him anymore and started pushing for his release on his own, her hands were tied. 

It took a little back and forth before Nathan let slip enough for Duke to put the pieces together and he couldn’t help but smirk. “So, let me get this straight…you lost the evidence…”

“Someone /stole/ the evidence,” Nathan snapped. “And you’re going to tell me who.”

“And what’s in it for me?” Duke asked smugly. 

“We can talk deals,” Nathan said, hating that he had to go there and just hoping that Duke would play ball. 

Duke laughed harshly. “With what? Without that evidence, you’ve got nothing on me.”

“Evidence tampering,” Nathan grasped at straws.

“With me locked in a cell? That you can confirm that I never left?” Duke pointed out amusedly. 

“We can look into who you had contact with and we will figure it out,” Nathan said coldly. 

“Good luck,” Duke chuckled. “Because I had nothing to do with it. The only people I had contact with were the guards and the only person I actually spoke to was Detective Parker. So…unless you have something else…I do believe my hold is up,” he held out his hands for the cuffs to be removed. 

“Not quite yet,” Nathan gave a smirk of his own. “We still have two hours and your boat is still being torn apart. We’ll find something. Don’t you worry.”

“Good luck making it stick,” Duke called after Nathan as he left the room before he deflated and just laid his head on the table. He didn’t know what had happened to the evidence, but when he found out he had every intention of buying the person responsible a drink or ten. He just wished it made this easier to cope with. It wasn’t like he’d never been betrayed before. It happened with surprising regularity, which was why he had stopped trusting people a long time ago. This was his own fault. He’d let down his guard. Worse than that he’d opened his heart. It was Evi all over again, but worse. Some part of him had never truly trusted Evi. She could run a con as well as he could and that made her impossible to trust completely. Audrey had really fooled him though. But he would get over it. He always did. And he wouldn’t make the same mistake again. He prided himself on learning from his mistakes and never repeating the same one.


	3. Chapter 3

Audrey did her due diligence on her new investigation, starting with talking to the guards at the holding cells, confirmed that Duke hadn’t left and that she was his only visitor, and started pulling their financials to make sure they were clean. Just because she knew they were didn’t mean that she could slack off. Not with the way Nathan would be watching this case like a hawk. She also, at Nathan’s orders, collected all the keys to the evidence lockup except for his and her own, and stricter protocols were being put into place. By the time she left for the night it was late and Duke had been released an hour before. 

Audrey went home and hid the drugs in her coat as she headed up to her apartment and hid them in the back of her closet for now. She would find a way to get them back to Duke later. Without letting him know it was her, of course. She wasn’t about to let anyone find out that she’d crossed the line into dirty cop even if she could trust him not to turn her in right now and she wasn’t counting on that. She just hoped that she could fix her friendship too. She knew it wouldn’t be nearly as easy as fixing her mistake though. If it was possible at all. 

The next morning, she had just finished breakfast when there was a knock at her door. She was surprised to find Duke standing there, but she didn’t hesitate to open the door and invite him in. “No thanks,” he said evenly as he handed her a folder. “I just came to drop this by.” 

“What is it?” Audrey asked worriedly as she slowly took it. “Eviction notice?” she guessed. 

Duke snorted derisively. “I’m not that petty, detective. It’s a lease. I thought it best to get something in writing given the current circumstances.”

“We never needed a lease before,” she said, trying to keep the hurt out of her voice. She just wanted to know where his mind was right now and try and figure out where she needed to start. 

“Before, I thought I was renting to a friend,” Duke said emotionlessly. 

“Duke, I /am/…”

“Let me stop you right there,” Duke cut her off, really needing to not do this right now, but also needing to make his position clear. “You’re a cop. You were doing your job. I got outplayed. It happens. Not usually to me, but we all make mistakes. I can own up to that and we can just move on cordially. Being betrayed by a friend is a whole different story though, so I would think long and hard about how you want to frame this.” 

Audrey swallowed around the lump in her throat and nodded slowly. Not in acceptance of the way he was apparently choosing to see it, but in agreement to think about it. She didn’t want to act hastily…again…and risk making things worse. She could see how shaky his masks were right now and how hard he was trying to keep them up. 

Once he saw that she wasn’t going to continue the statement that would have ripped his heart out even worse, he just gave a curt nod. “I’ll just leave this with you then. You can ask for me downstairs if you have any questions or just leave the signed copy with the manager by tomorrow,” he said as he turned to walk away. 

Once he was gone, Audrey closed the door and let out a heavy breath, hugging the folder to her chest as her back slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, trying to blink her tears away and wiping at the few that traitorously escaped. She took a few steadying breaths before she got up and went to sit down and look over it. When she saw that it was just a standard lease, apparently just printed from online somewhere, she knew it was bad. Duke hadn’t even cared enough to make it his own. She saw the address, rent, and due date as per their previous agreement filled in with his distinctive scrawl, and everything else was just left as is. 

She closed the folder without signing it. Somehow signing that felt like signing their friendship away for good and she couldn’t do that. The very idea was nearly crippling. Did she have a choice though? He’d made it clear that if she claimed friendship this situation would become worse, but could she really let herself walk away? Maybe she could fight through it and get back at least some of what she’d lost, but if she walked away…If she went with his narrative that the whole friendship was a con…she would never get another chance. 

On the other hand, if she did go with his narrative, she could at least stay part of his life, even if it was only at the fringes. As landlord and lessee, exchanging polite greetings when they saw each other around, which would probably be often since she was living above his business. If she made it worse though…would she even have a place to live at all? Would the betrayal make him feel justified in kicking her out? Maybe she would never even see him again after that to /try/ and fix things. She just kept talking herself in circles for hours before she had to find some way to get her mind off of it. At least for a while. 

She headed downstairs and grabbed a lunch to-go, not able to stomach eating there right now, and headed into the station. Just because it was Saturday didn’t mean that she couldn’t get some work done. She didn’t often work weekends since things quieted down with the end of the troubles, but she /did/ have an active investigation going right now, even if it was a joke. She ate at her desk, trying her best to bury herself in work and forget how much of a mess her life had become in just two days. One stupid impulsive act had ruined everything. 

She had been there for about an hour before Nathan came in, and she wasn’t at all surprised to see him there. He was the chief after all. He was always in and out any day of the week. “Hey, Parker. I was gonna do this Monday, but since you’re here…” he dropped a folder on her desk. 

“What is it?” she asked carefully, suddenly developing an apprehension about folders. 

“The paperwork for your commendation. We’ll still do the presentation Monday of course, but I thought you might want to see it sooner,” Nathan said with a proud smile. 

“But we lost him,” Audrey pointed out, trying not to hyperventilate. She had hoped that would be the end of the commendation talk. She couldn’t accept this. Not like this. /For/ this. 

“Doesn’t matter. You still did great work. Not your fault some creep ruined it,” Nathan said, still angry about that. 

Audrey closed her eyes and counted to ten before she realized what she had to do. The only thing that had even a chance of saving her friendship with Duke, even if it was a slim chance. Nathan had been right all along. She couldn’t be a cop and friends with a felon. Not a good cop anyway, and she may have already crossed the line into dirty cop, but she sure as hell didn’t want to stay there. No, she would have to choose. It was always going to come to this. The choice was made infinitely easier by the folder sitting on her desk right now. She could never stomach accepting this commendation. Just wearing the badge had been so much more difficult. She took a deep breath before telling Nathan, “I can’t accept it.” 

“Why not? You earned it,” he unknowingly echoed Duke’s words. 

“No, I didn’t,” she shook her head, closing the file she’d been working on for her investigation into the evidence theft and handing it to him. “I was the one who took the evidence,” she said shakily as he took the folder with a blank uncomprehending stare. She reached down and took off her badge and gun and set them on the desk in front of Nathan. 

“Why would you do that?” Nathan asked through grit teeth once he finally found words. 

“Because my friendship with Duke was never a ruse. He was my friend and I took advantage of his trust and acted impulsively by arresting him and I had to fix it,” she said evenly, trying not to let her nerves show. She deserved whatever he was going to do to her. She’d betrayed Duke by arresting him and then she’d betrayed her oaths to fix it. If that meant ending up in a cell, then so be it. 

Nathan took a few deep breaths for calm before saying, “Because I owe you for everything you did for me and this town during the troubles…I will give you a chance to resign with a clean slate.” No matter what she’d done, he couldn’t bring himself to arrest her. Until today, he’d thought that he was in love with her even, but he couldn’t love someone that could do this. That could betray every oath of office they’d taken. For the sake of an unrepentant criminal. That didn’t mean that he could arrest her though. Not after everything they’d been through. Everything they’d done together. 

“Okay. I resign,” she said, not daring to push her luck. She definitely noticed that there was nothing about friendship in his statement and hoped that she hadn’t lost him too. She knew that she probably had though and had only herself to blame. She’d already handed over the badge and gun so she pulled out her keys and took off the key ring for work, including the keys for the evidence storage, gun lockup, and the rest of the building and put it in his outstretched hand along with the department cell phone. 

Nathan set them, along with her badge and gun on his old desk for the moment which he perched on the edge of. “I’ll supervise you cleaning out your desk,” he said firmly. He had zero trust left to extend to her. 

Audrey nodded, blinking the tears from her eyes at the blatant lack of trust, not that she could blame him a bit. She reached back to the corner and took an empty evidence box. “May I?” she asked. 

“Why don’t you take this one,” Nathan said coldly, grabbing the one she’d tampered with and was supposedly investigating and plopping it on her desk. “It’s of no use anymore anyway.” 

Audrey nodded, quickly wiping away the few tears that fell, but not willing to argue. She opened the box and started putting her personal stuff inside, feeling Nathan’s eyes on her inspecting everything that she put in the box. “Um…I need my keys to unlock the drawer,” she said after a few minutes, not having thought of that before she handed them over. Instead of giving her the keys, Nathan came over and unlocked the drawer for her and she pulled out the few personal things that she’d left in there and then she was done. She took a few deep shaky breaths before asking the question that she needed the answer to. “Nathan? Are we…you know…still friends?” 

“I don’t know, yet,” Nathan said emotionlessly. 

Audrey just gave a sad nod, picked up her box, and walked out. She managed to keep from crying again as she got home and took it upstairs, just shoving it on the top shelf of her closet for now. She didn’t want to look at any of that stuff right now. When she went back to sit down, her eyes caught on the first folder that turned her world upside down and she sighed heavily as she pinched the bridge of her nose to hold back the tears, yet again. She was starting to feel like a hosepipe lately. How the hell could one stupid moment completely implode her entire life? She should have just left in the damn barn. So much for earning her redemption.


	4. Chapter 4

Sunday morning, Audrey had finally made a decision about Duke and headed to the Cape Rouge to talk to him about it. First, she got all the evidence she’d stolen and put it in her larger purse to give it back to him. There was no point keeping it secret now anyway. When she got down to the boat she noticed the hatch was open which meant he was there, she stepped inside calling for him, stopping short when she saw him getting up from his table to lean against the counter with his arms crossed. “Detective Parker,” he nodded curtly. “Sorry about the mess. It happens when your entire boat gets tossed by the cops and takes a while to clean up.” 

“I’m sor…”

“Why don’t we head out to deck,” he cut her off, not wanting to hear the empty words. “I wouldn’t want to be accused of anything untoward behind closed doors after all.” He knew it was a low blow, despite his perfectly polite tone, but he didn’t particularly care. 

“You don’t really think I would…” she trailed off with a sigh as he moved to the door, motioning her out of it. She couldn’t really blame him for not wanting her inside his boat anymore though. Not after what happened the last time she was here. 

Once he had her outside in the open, he leaned against the side of the boat, crossing his arms once again. “What can I do for you, detective? Did you have questions about the lease? I thought it was rather straightforward.”

“It is, but…but I can’t sign this,” she said shakily as she handed the folder back to him. 

“Oh? Something in particular we need to negotiate?” he asked, not giving an inch on his coldly polite demeanor. 

“Just the fact that signing that would be like signing away our friendship forever, and I can’t do that,” Audrey said nervously. 

“What friendship, detective?” Duke asked dangerously. He’d made his stance clear and if she really insisted on going down this road, he didn’t know if he would be able to hold himself together. 

“I will never forgive myself for arresting you and I totally get if you never forgive me for it either. But I /am/ your friend Duke. And yes I’m using the present tense because no matter what you think of me, I will always care about you,” Audrey said quickly, needing to get it all out before he interrupted her or threw her off the boat. “Arresting you that night was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.” 

“Then why would you?” Duke asked harshly. 

“Because Nathan had been on my case for months about how my friendship with you would corrupt me and I swore that it wouldn’t, but then…when I saw your stash…that was all that was running through my head and I just…reacted. Stupidly,” she tried to explain. “It’s no justification, I know. Nothing could ever justify it. You trusted me and I betrayed that trust in the worst possible way. I’ll never be able to take that back, no matter how badly I want to.” 

“And I’m supposed to believe that?” Duke scoffed. “Your big bust slipped through your fingers and now you’ll say anything to get back in the game. Fool me once, detective…but I don’t ever make the same mistake twice.” 

“I’m not a detective anymore,” Audrey told him. 

“Is that so,” Duke snorted skeptically. “Going full undercover now are we?” 

“No,” Audrey shook her head and then held out her purse. “Here. This…this is yours.” 

Duke narrowed his eyes at her, but didn’t take it, instead just peeking inside and then rolled his eyes. “Okay, I get why you think I’m a completely gullible idiot. I did fall for the oldest trick in the book after all. But I’m not quite /that/ stupid,” he said, more than a little offended that she thought he was. “That’s not mine. I’ve never seen it before in my life.”

“This isn’t a trick, Duke. I’m the one who took it from evidence, so they’d have to let you go. It was the only way I knew how to fix my screwup,” Audrey continued holding it out to him. 

“Or you found it…I take it, confirm it’s mine, and the cuffs come back out,” Duke pointed out. “If you stole it, then you keep it. It’s yours. Because I’m not touching it or admitting anything.” 

Audrey sighed and nodded, putting her purse back on her shoulder. She would keep it for him in case he ever trusted her enough to take it back again. “Okay. I guess I get that.” 

“And as far as the lease goes, you can either sign it or clear your stuff out by the end of the day. Of course, if you’re really out of a job now, paying the rent might be a hardship anyway, so…” 

“Duke, don’t do this. Please,” Audrey begged, tears springing to her eyes again. “I’ll keep the rent paid, but…don’t make me sign away our friendship. Please.” 

“It’s a lease, Audrey. Not a restraining order,” Duke said wearily, refusing to admit to himself or her that he was softening slightly, but not willing to budge on the subject. 

Audrey hesitated for a long moment, wondering if the deeper meaning of those words was just wishful thinking on her part. “Tell me that I’m not giving up any possibility of us fixing this by signing that,” she half-asked desperately. 

“This,” he held the folder up, “Is to protect us /both/. Signing it or not will have nothing whatsoever to do with any personal matters.” He wasn’t offering her forgiveness. Not by a long shot. But he could honestly promise her that the lease had nothing to do with that. 

Audrey took a deep shaky breath, hoping against hope that she wasn’t making a huge mistake. “Okay. Do you have a pen on you?” 

“Wait here,” he told her firmly before heading back inside to grab the pen off the table where he was working and bringing it back to her. 

Audrey took the folder and moved over to the table on the deck and sat down to sign and initial the appropriate places and then closed it with a sigh and handed it back to Duke. “Okay, there.” 

Duke checked it over and then nodded curtly. “It was a pleasure doing business with you, Ms. Parker.”

Audrey winced at the name, and not because it didn’t include officer or detective, but because it was so coldly formal. “Duke…Can we just…talk?” 

“I can’t imagine what else could be said that hasn’t already,” Duke said emotionlessly.

“Just…say something,” she begged. “Tell me I haven’t lost you forever, tell me what you’re thinking, yell at me. I don’t care, just give me /something/.” 

“Have a good day,” he said simply before turning and heading back into the boat, closing the hatch behind him. He let his masks fall as he leaned against the door, letting his head fall back against it, closing his eyes and willing his tears not to fall. Why the hell couldn’t she have just taken what he offered and let it go? Why did she have to twist the knife by claiming to care? He could handle being outplayed. That wasn’t personal. Just her doing her job. Being betrayed was so much worse. Even if he did believe her regret and manage to forgive her for it, he could never trust her again and what kind of friendship could that be? 

Audrey stood there for a good ten minutes, tears streaming down her face before she wiped them away and headed back to her apartment, putting the bag with the drugs back into the back of her closet. She would have to find a better hiding place for them, but that would work for now. It wasn’t like her apartment was likely to be raided. Not unless Duke ratted her out for having them in the first place, but she didn’t think he would go that far. No matter how hurt or upset he was. Plus, she wanted to leave them somewhere he could find easily. He had a key to the apartment as the landlord and he knew that she had them now, so he could come get them if he wanted without having to worry about entrapment issues. 

Once she had herself mostly together, she headed out to do some shopping. She needed groceries, but also a new phone since hers had belonged to the department. She could use a new computer too since it was in the same position, but she knew that Duke had been right about one thing. Depending on how long it took her to find a new job, she would have trouble paying the rent before long. She did have a bit of savings which would keep her for a couple months, but she needed to play it safe. She would just get a cheap smartphone and use that. If she took a contract, she might even be able to get one for free. It would be annoying for filling things out online, but she would manage until she got back on her feet.


	5. Chapter 5

Audrey ran into a problem getting a cell phone contract that she then realized she would run into with getting a job too. Her identity wasn’t her own. And she had no idea how to get around that. She needed a phone either way though so she had to settle for a prepaid phone, but at least she was able to still get a smartphone, even if it did cost more. Once she had that settled and turned on, she called Nathan on her way to the grocery store. “Hey, it’s Audrey,” she said once he answered confusedly not recognizing the number. “This is my new number for now.”

“I don’t have an answer for you yet,” Nathan told her, assuming she was calling about her question from the previous day about their friendship. 

“No, I figured. That’s not why I’m calling,” she said, ignoring the hurt at his words. 

“What do you need then?” 

“I was wondering…how has the department been getting away with paying me since my identity actually belongs to the real Audrey Parker?” she asked. 

“Anonymously,” Nathan told her. “Something that law enforcement is allowed in the case of confidential informants and undercover officers.” 

“Oh. Right,” Audrey said defeatedly. That meant that it wouldn’t work for getting any other job. “Well…thanks for the info.” 

Nathan sighed and told her, “Listen…I shouldn’t be saying this, but…there are people that will pay you under the table. I’m sure your buddy Duke is one of them. As long as you’re not doing anything illegal, we’ll be hands off on that.” 

“Okay. Thanks Nathan,” Audrey said sadly, glad that he was at least willing to do that much for her. She didn’t tell him that Duke wasn’t speaking to her either. There was no way he would give her a job. She would just have to try and find those other places. And hope that they had something that she was qualified to do. That was tomorrow’s problem though. She shot Duke a quick text with her new number, figuring that if nothing else than as her landlord he should have a way to contact her. She didn’t expect a response and didn’t get one either. 

When she got home with her groceries, she checked the bag in the closet to find that it was still full. He hadn’t come and gotten the pot. Maybe he just didn’t want to make it obvious by coming so quick. She got everything put away and then found herself at loose ends. Usually when she got bored she would go hang out with Duke but that wasn’t an option anymore. Nor was catching up on some backlogged work. Hell, she didn’t even think she could stomach going down to the bar for a while even if she could afford it. It settled on her once again just how much her life had completely imploded, and she felt the tears welling up again and just let herself wallow for the rest of the day. 

The next morning, she had to fight back tears again when she found an envelope stuck in her door with a photocopy of the signed lease. She shook it off though and headed out to try and salvage something of her life. She put on a nice outfit and got in her car headed for town. She decided to start with Vince and Dave as the people she was most friendly with who had no reason to hate her now. That turned out to be a mistake because they grilled her about why she needed a job, what happened at the precinct, why didn’t she just ask her best friend who owned a business and had no problem paying people under the table, and so on. It wasn’t until two hours dodging and hedging around their questions that they finally admitted that they didn’t have anything, under the table or not, but they would let her know if something came up. If it did, it would probably just be a delivery route and not pay much though. 

Her next try was the café, but they wouldn’t pay under the table and just directed her to Duke, which ended up being the standard line for most everyplace she tried. The ones that did pay under the table were usually guard run and since they didn’t like her anymore, she was out of luck there too. Not that she didn’t try. She spent the entire week out there trying to find something…anything…that she could do. The best she could find was an offer for migrant farm work if she was still hard up during the season, but nothing that could help her now. 

She spent her evenings sitting morosely on the balcony when it wasn’t too cold, sometimes catching a glimpse of Duke on the boat, but mostly just listening to the music and revelry from downstairs. She rarely went down there anymore though either. Since Duke had taken her off the free meals list, she was being treated like any other customer and that hurt as much as anything else even if she could afford to eat there now with her saving every penny she could. She tried more than once to talk to Duke, but he always either avoided her completely, or was distantly polite when he couldn’t. 

She didn’t give up on finding a job of some sort for a month, which was when the depression really started to set in. Once she paid the rent that month, her savings was getting low, even with her barely eating, so she started trying to sell her car so she could downgrade. She ended up getting enough to finish paying it off, buy a clunker that managed to run enough to get her from point a to point b, and still have enough left over to keep her above water for another few months. She barely left the apartment anymore, but since she was so far outside of town, there wasn’t any public transportation that came out that far. She gave brief thought to moving into town before deciding against it. Not only would she be out of Duke’s life completely then, but it wouldn’t work. The only places she would be able to get without an identity of her own would be more than a little dangerous and no cheaper than this one. No, she was better off staying here where she was safe at least. 

Duke had noticed Audrey coming more and more unraveled. He’d heard how she was turning over every rock looking for an under the table job with no luck. He knew that at least a dozen people had pointed her towards him for help, but she had never even tried. Even in the rare times she did manage to corner him. He wanted to think that he would say no anyway, but he couldn’t be sure. Just like he couldn’t be sure this whole thing was an act. He knew enough about undercover cops to know that establishing a cover was part of it and if they usually did jail time and worse to get the connections to work an undercover identity, this kind of game was well within the realm of possibility. Get him to feel sorry for her, give her a job and a way back into his good graces, and then boom. He’s right back in a cell and they’re a lot more careful with the evidence this time. No, he couldn’t let himself fall for it. No matter how sorry he felt for her. 

He did feel sorry enough to give her some advice though and headed up one night when he noticed her on the balcony. “You know…I’m sure Nathan’s over it enough to be willing to give you a job again, even if it’s not your old one.” She might have to grovel a bit, but according to rumors she’d been doing much worse out there already. 

“No,” Audrey shook her head sadly. “Because if I have anything to do with the precinct anymore, I might as well give up on the possibility of ever getting your friendship back.” She hadn’t spoken to Nathan since the day she’d gotten her new phone and gave him the number. 

Duke faltered a bit at that. If she had an ulterior motive there, then she wouldn’t be admitting that goal so freely. Unless she was counting on him thinking that and it was part of the game too. “So this is better? You would rather keep living like this?” 

Audrey looked up at Duke with pain-filled eyes. “I would rather die than give up on you, Duke. I don’t care how long it takes or what I have to do.” She could live with not having his love, but not with losing his friendship too. She would fight for that with every breath she had. 

“It’ll never happen,” Duke told her, as much because he couldn’t stand to see her suffer anymore for false hope as the fact that it was true. “Like I said before, I don’t make the same mistakes twice. I don’t trust easily, Audrey and you know that. You’ve always known that. There’s no going back from here. Talk to Nate, get a job, and quit worrying about me.” He turned and walked away, unable to stomach the tears in her eyes that had sprung up during his speech.


	6. Chapter 6

Audrey got what Duke was saying and she knew that it would be a long hard road if she ever wanted to be his friend again, but she still refused to give up. Even if Nathan /would/ give her a job, which she doubted. No, she would find a way. She had to. Giving up on Duke wasn’t an option. She just wished that she’d had that epiphany before she made the biggest mistake of her life. She wished she’d listen to Nathan about not being able to have it both ways. Maybe then she would have quit the precinct before she burned the most important bridge in her life. Or at least prepared herself mentally for the position she was put in that night so that she could have made a better choice. There was no use dwelling in what ifs though. It was what it was and now she had no job, no friends, no money, and was holding onto a roof over her head by the skin of her teeth. The only thing she had left was her hope. The hope that someday Duke would let her back in, even just a little bit. 

Audrey’s birthday was three weeks after the conversation with Duke, not that she had any hopes for a good birthday this year. She just didn’t expect it to be as bad as it was. Dave had called and asked her to come by. She didn’t dare hope that it was for a job. She knew it wasn’t for a surprise party because who would go. No, her best hope was for a useful gift. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it there. Her stupid hunk of junk car wouldn’t go anywhere. It started up fine, but wouldn’t go into gear and kept grinding and shaking whenever she tried. That was the last straw and she finally got out and started kicking it, knowing it wouldn’t do any good, but it was making her feel better at least. She didn’t even notice Duke standing there leaning against the post until he said, “Your transmission’s out.”

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to help me?” she asked, not having much hope, but still had to ask. 

“Not much I can do for that,” Duke shrugged. “I mean, I could put a new transmission in for you, but even if I did it for free the transmission itself is gonna cost you a few thousand dollars.” He wasn’t about to admit that he’d been working on her car late at night trying to keep it running as long as he could, but there was only so far he was willing to go. Footing the bill for new spark plugs and such was one thing, but there was no way he was going that far for someone who’d already burned him once. Not even on her birthday. 

Even the implication that he /might/ be willing to do it for free wasn’t enough to keep the defeat from settling in Audrey’s posture. “Yeah, there’s no way I can afford that.” 

Seeing the hopelessness in her eyes tugged at Duke’s heartstrings and he hated himself for not being able to give up on her even now. For still loving her so deeply despite everything. That was exactly why he couldn’t let it go. Why he couldn’t forgive her because if he did, then he might was well throw in the towel altogether. That didn’t mean he could just stand here and let her fall apart though. “I was about to head into town if you need a ride,” he lied. 

That was enough to get a slight spark of hope back in Audrey’s eyes. “Would you?” she asked hopefully. 

“Sure, hop in,” Duke sighed, motioning to his truck as he pulled his keys out of his pocket. “Where are you heading?” he asked, despite already knowing. At least knowing one of her stops. 

“The Herald. Dave asked me to come by,” Audrey told him. “And I’ll probably do some grocery shopping too if it’s not too much trouble? I don’t know how long you’re planning to be in town for…” Or if a ride home was part of the offer. 

“I’ll be there long enough. Just text me when you’re done,” Duke told her. He’d find something to keep himself occupied. He was good at that. 

“Thank you,” she said softly, but didn’t get a response. She wanted to talk to him so badly, but didn’t want to risk this kindness being taken back if she pushed, so the drive was spent in silence until he pulled up in front of the Herald and she got out. 

When Audrey walked inside she heard the nosemakers and felt the confetti fall on her head as Vince and Dave both said a cheerful, “Happy Birthday!” 

She managed to give them a watery smile as she said, “Thank you.” It meant something that they stood by her, even after finding out what she’d done as she was sure they had relatively quickly. They knew everything that happened in this town. They were the only ones that really talked to her anymore even if it wasn’t often. As expected it was just the two of them there though. 

“Come. Sit. We have presents,” Vince said ushering her to a chair. 

“And cake,” Dave added. 

“I appreciate it so much, guys. Really. I can’t stay too long though. My car broke down so Duke will be driving me home once he’s done with his business in town and I still need to get some grocery shopping done, so…” 

“It’s alright. We completely understand,” Vince said sympathetically. 

“We should get right to it then,” Dave nodded, cutting into the cake and giving Audrey a large piece. They could both see why there were concerns about her not eating enough. She seemed to have lost twenty pounds at least. 

Once she was eating the cake, Vince handed her the first present. They had debated between getting her nice things and useful things before deciding on both. Especially since they were the only presents she was likely to get. She opened it to find a gorgeous red dress with a matching handbag. “That one’s from both of us.”

“It’s beautiful. Thank you,” she said with a bright smile. 

“Here this is from me,” Dave lied, handing her an envelope. He’d ended up having to put his real other present with Vince’s, but Duke had been very clear that she absolutely not know that it was from him. Or that he had been concerned about her not eating. 

Audrey opened the envelope and pulled out a handwritten card good for thirty free meals at the Grey Gull, alcohol not included. Handwritten and signed by Duke. She blinked the tears from her eyes as she looked up and thanked Dave before Vince handed her another envelope and she opened it to find three gift cards. One for the supermarket for two hundred dollars, one for the department store for a hundred dollars, and another handwritten one for the thrift store for a hundred dollars. “Thank you. These will all come in very handy.” 

“Maybe you could use them to get a bicycle if you can’t get your car fixed,” Vince suggested. 

“That’s a good idea. I’ll probably do that,” Audrey agreed. 

“Here, why don’t I drive you to the store and save you some time. You’ll have to come back here and pick up the rest of the cake anyway,” Dave offered, and Audrey gratefully accepted. Neither of them offered to drive her home in hopes that by Duke driving her it might help to heal the rift between them, at least a bit. 

Dave took her to the thrift store first to see if they had a bicycle, and got lucky. It was a little on the small side for her, but not so much that she couldn’t use it and she gladly took it and then took a few minutes to get an armload of books which made it an even twenty dollars off the hundred. The next stop was the grocery store where she used the gift card but still only got the bare minimum, wanting to make it last as long as possible. Plenty of pasta, bread, peanut butter, jelly, ramen, and the like. She ignored Dave’s frown when she came out. She was so far beyond caring what people thought by this point. She texted Duke to pick her up at the Herald whenever he was ready once they got back there and she went inside to ‘celebrate’ a little more while she waited. 

Duke got her text, but didn’t go right away. He wasn’t going to let her think that he was at her beck and call. Or give her any hints that he only came out here because she needed a ride. He killed time for another hour before he went to pick her up, also giving a worried frown at the sight of her ‘groceries’, but at least he was relatively certain that she would get at least thirty good meals since he’d put an expiration date of a month from now on the card. That meant she would get at least one good meal a day in that time. 

Since they were on the way home now, she wasn’t as worried about being stranded, so Audrey tried to make conversation. “Do you think I should sell the car or save up to fix it?” she asked. 

“I think it’s a piece of crap that’s worth a lot more as scrap than it is as a car,” Duke said honestly. 

“Okay,” Audrey nodded, accepting his opinion on the subject. “Do you have any recommendations on how I would manage that then? Like who to talk to and stuff?” 

“I can take care of it if you want and we can call it next month’s rent?” Duke suggested. He would probably get a little less than the rent for it, but it would be close enough. 

“That would be great. Thank you,” Audrey said relieved that she wouldn’t have to worry about it and it got another month of rent covered. She had no idea how she was going to come up with the money for next month’s rent anyway. 

Once they got back, Duke helped her get the bicycle out of the back of his truck, but left her to the rest. “You really shouldn’t leave that unlocked,” he told her, grabbing a spare snake lock out of his toolbox. “You can use that for now.” 

“Thank you, Duke. Really. For all this. It means a lot,” she told him. 

“Just know that it doesn’t change anything,” he told her. He knew that it was cruel on her birthday and with everything else she was going through, but he couldn’t let her think that she was getting to him. That he was faltering in his resolve. That would just make it even worse for both of them. 

“I know,” she said sadly. “But it still means a lot.” He was just too nice a guy to let her suffer was all. She knew that. It had still meant everything to her. Just the chance to be close to him for a while. Duke gave her a polite nod and headed inside the restaurant while she locked up her new bike and took the rest of her stuff upstairs, setting the almost entire cake on the counter before heading downstairs for her first free meal. If she was lucky, Duke would still be around.


	7. Chapter 7

Since Duke took her car for January’s rent and her free meals at the Gull lasted through the middle of January, Audrey was sitting pretty for a little while, but it didn’t take long before February caught up to her and she had nothing. She didn’t want to see if Duke would actually evict her if she couldn’t come up with the rent, so she found that she had no choice but to cross another line. She took out the drugs that had been sitting in her closet for months and started trying to sell them. She couldn’t help but wonder if this was how Duke had gotten started on his path of crime. She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but she remembered an off-hand comment that Duke had made once. When they were dealing with the guy who spawned copies of himself. That he had squatted in a lot of crappy places when he was a young teenager or maybe even younger than that. She wished she had thought to ask him about it back then. When there was at least a chance of him opening up to her. Maybe he would at least give her some tips if it came to that for her. 

Duke noticed Audrey selling the drugs…in his bar of all places…and found himself actually leaning towards trusting her again before he cut that train of thought off at the pass. He was sure that cops had gone farther than that undercover. He couldn’t let himself fall for it. Much as it did irritate him that she was poaching his turf, he knew that he couldn’t call her on it since that would mean admitting that he did the same. He also noticed when it stopped. She had apparently run out of supply and had no idea where to get more. Or wasn’t willing to get more. She had probably just sold what had been confiscated from him. He didn’t miss the irony that the rent that month was probably made from his own drug supply. 

It wasn’t until a few weeks later that she crossed a line. Duke had been tending bar when he noticed her and narrowed his eyes. No way was she doing what it looked like she was doing. He got an eye tic as she was rubbing herself on some random guy, dressed far too nice for a place like this, but he wasn’t positive until she took his hand to lead him out and towards her stairs. The thing that got him though was the dead look in her eyes. She didn’t want to be doing this. She had just hit rock bottom for desperation. She wasn’t even really trying to pretend. Duke jumped the bar and intercepted them at the bottom of the stairs, inserting himself between her and the guy, his hand on the guys chest, pushing him back as he said, “No. Not happening. Take a hike.” The guy apparently decided that arguing wouldn’t be in his best interest and took off. 

“Duke…”

“Don’t,” he hissed, taking her arm and pulling her up the stairs. 

“I don’t have a choice,” she protested. It was the last thing she had to sell.

Duke pulled out his wallet when the got to her door and thrust a wad of cash into her hand. “Just…don’t,” he hissed again before turning and walking away. He needed a drink. Or more like a dozen of them. He went back downstairs, just in case she tried it again. If she did, he was washing his hands of the whole thing. That would mean that it wasn’t about the money. He’d given her more than enough to get her through at least another month, including rent. He just had to know if she would. Instead of taking over the bar again, he just poured his own drink and sat on the end. And kept the bottle. 

Once Duke walked away, her hand clenched instinctively around the money as she felt her breath being stolen from her body and she knew that she was on the verge of a panic attack so she rushed inside as quickly as she could before she hit her knees and started shaking as the sobs were pulled from her. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take. She couldn’t believe what she’d almost done. She wrapped her arms around her stomach as if she was trying to hold herself together as she rocked back and forth. God…she had been about to…but then Duke was there…he saved her from it and… She remembered the money in her hand and threw it as she choked another sob. She couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t live like this anymore. Her life had been over for months now. It was time to admit that and stop fighting it. 

As soon as she made that decision, her panic attack ended and she could breathe again. It felt like a weight was lifted off her shoulders. She went to grab some paper and a pen. She had a letter to write first. She had to make sure he understood that it wasn’t his fault. That he wouldn’t blame himself. She was the only one to blame. She had thrown it all away the second those handcuffs clicked around Duke’s wrists. Once she started writing, she found she couldn’t stop. She needed him to know everything. She wrote for over an hour as her tears splattered the pages. When she was finally done, she folded it up and put it in an envelope, writing his name on the front and opened her front door to stick it in the outside of the window. The rent was due in two days. When she didn’t leave it at the bar for him, he would come up looking for it and find the note. 

She ripped off the revealing dress she’d worn for this. There was no way she was going to die in that. She pulled out one of her nice business suits. From when she used to have a job. When her life wasn’t in tatters and she put that on. She got a big glass of water and then went looking for the pills. She knew she still had some pain pills left over from the last time she got hurt on the job. She’d hated taking them so there should be plenty for this. She finally found them in the back of the medicine cabinet and went to her bed, took the whole bottle and then laid down on top of the covers. 

Duke had almost finished the bottle and was relatively drunk, just not quite smashed yet. He was drunk enough to have the conversation he needed to have though. He headed out and took the stairs to Audrey’s apartment. He was finally relatively sure that she wasn’t trying to play him. Not after tonight. That didn’t mean that he could just jump right back into being her friend though. It definitely didn’t mean that he could trust her again. It did mean that he was willing to talk about it. And he knew that he owed her an explanation of his reaction tonight, hence the bulk of the drinking. 

Once he got to her door and saw the note there with his name on it, he furrowed his brow confusedly as he reached out to take it. He opened it and had to blink a few times to get his eyes to focus, but once they did, he got about two sentences in before he started banging on the door and calling her name. When she didn’t answer, he reached for his keys, cursing when he realized that he didn’t have that set with him. It was still on the boat. He would just have to fix the door later. He backed up and kicked it in, wincing as he felt his ankle twist, not quite being sober enough to get the angle right, but the door slammed open anyway so it was good enough, and he rushed in. 

When he saw her laying in the bed, on top of the blankets, not even phased by his violent entry, he just prayed he wasn’t too late. He ran over and felt for a pulse first, immediately noticing the bottle in her hand and prying it out with his other hand just as he found her pulse. He looked at the bottle and did some quick math, making the safer assumption that the entire prescription had been in it and he cursed. It would definitely do the trick. He rushed over to the sink as he muttered to himself, “I swear you better not have moved the first aid kit…aha!” he snatched it and opened it, not even caring that the contents spilled everywhere. He was looking for one thing in particular and having put this kit together himself before she moved in, it should be here unless she’d used it already which he doubted. 

He fumbled frantically in the mess for a minute before finding the bottle of ipecac and ran back over to the bed, pouring some in her mouth and massaging her throat until she swallowed and then sat her up just in time. He didn’t even care that half of it ended up on him as he moved behind her to keep her sitting up so she didn’t choke. He occupied his mind during her vomiting by counting the pills that were spilling out and hoping that he wouldn’t end up having to take her to the hospital. He knew that technically he should but it would just traumatize her more. The fact that most of the pills were coming up intact meant that he shouldn’t need to at least. 

Once she was finally done emptying her stomach, she groaned, “Duke…”

“Shh. I’m here. I’ve got you. It’s okay,” Duke whispered, finally able to breathe again. She would be fine. She was awake and her pulse was a lot stronger and the color was coming back to her cheeks. She would be fine. 

“S’not okay,” she slurred. “N’v’r okay…m’sry. So s’ry.”

“I know sweetheart,” Duke breathed out unable to resist pressing a kiss to her head. “I know. Everything’ll be okay. You think you’re up to getting cleaned up?” 

“Nuh,” her head lolled to the side in an attempt to shake it. 

“Okay, well you kinda need to. We both do. So I’m gonna have to do it for you, but I promise I won’t take liberties, okay?” he said as he got up, lifting her in his arms and carrying her to the bathroom. 

“Don’ care,” she muttered before she was unconscious again and Duke sighed. He sat her down on the edge of the tub and used one hand to hold her upright while the other undressed her. Most of it was on her clothes at least so that helped, but he still needed to get her in the tub anyway so that he could take care of himself since he was relatively covered too. At least his top half was. The first spew had hit his shoulder and run down the front and back so he stripped out of his shirts and then washed his hands, using the rag to get the little that had hit his neck and then he turned his attention to her. He used the rag to get the transfer on her shoulder from when he put her in the tub and then lifted her out so he could rinse her hair without getting the rest of her wet.


	8. Chapter 8

Once that was done, he grabbed a blanket to wrap around her and set her on the couch so he could take care of the bed. He made one more count of the pills, making sure they were all there, before he wrapped up the blankets and the sheets where it had seeped through. The blanket wouldn’t be able to go in the washing machine, so he went and threw that in the tub and put the sheets and their clothes into the washing machine and got it started. He made a detour to check on her to make sure her pulse was still strong and she was breathing okay before he headed back to the bathroom and washed out the thick blanket in the tub. It would still need the laundromat, but at least it wasn’t as gross anymore. He hung it up over the shower curtain rod and went to check on Audrey again. 

The adrenaline had worked through most of the alcohol in his system so he was much more sober now and set to cleaning up the mess. Mostly just to have something to do, at least until he stopped shaking so badly. Once he got the vomit cleaned up from the floor and bedside table, he saw all the money that he’d given her strewn all over the floor like she’d just balled it up and threw it, so he picked that up, stacking it neatly on her kitchen table. He really hoped that hadn’t been what set her off. Not that it really mattered. He knew it was his fault anyway. For shutting her out. For not even letting her try and make up for what she did. Why did it matter if he’d given her the last straw when he’d given her all the rest? Hell, even if he’d just caved enough to offer her a job maybe this could have been avoided. 

Once the money was all cleaned up and set on the table, he started cleaning up the spilled first aid kit and got the rest of the bottle of ipecac and put back in there. He knew that technically it wasn’t recommended for use anymore, but it had always worked for him, so he would still use it and if he hadn’t had it, she probably wouldn’t be alive. She might not have made it long enough to get to the hospital to have her stomach pumped. Once everything was cleaned up, he wasn’t quite trembling as badly anymore so he picked up the letter that he had barely started, feeling the need to finish it, and sat down on the couch, lifting her head to put it in his lap so he would be close enough to know if she started having trouble. 

Duke,  
I want to start this by saying that this isn’t your fault, so please don’t ever blame yourself. My life was over the moment I put those handcuffs on you and I only have myself to blame. This was always the only way it could end. It just took me a while to see that. (He had to force himself not to feel the same panic he had the first time he read that part and continue to the rest of it.)  
Most of my life hasn’t been mine. It belonged to that other Audrey, but ever since I came into this world, I’ve just made mistake after mistake. Most of them regarding you. So many things I’ve regretted starting from the night I stood you up. I don’t know if you know this or not, but you probably do. I knew on Wednesday that I wouldn’t be able to make it Friday night. I should have called you and told you. I should have tried to reschedule. I wanted to so badly, but I was scared. There was always something about you that drew me in and that was scary enough by itself, but I was an FBI agent and you were a smuggler which added a whole new level to the fear. (Of course he knew that. That was why it had hurt so much. He wondered what she was getting at with the rest of it though. Being drawn to him, wishing she had rescheduled, it didn’t make much sense given everything that came after. He definitely got the fear though. It was the same fear he’d had when he realized he was falling for a fed.)  
No, that wasn’t my first regret with you. The first one was the morning after you saved me. When I didn’t even thank you. I just criticized everything. Even the phone. It didn’t dawn on me for a long time that you must have gone out in the middle of the night to find it and you probably didn’t have a lot of options so, thank you. For everything you did for me that night and everything you’ve done for me since. All the times that you’ve helped me and saved me. You’ve always been so good to me and I repaid you for that in the worst possible way.   
One of the few things I don’t regret is Colorado. Even if it didn’t go anywhere. The chance to kiss you, just once, was everything to me. That has always been my most cherished memory. I know you don’t feel the same and that’s okay, but I love you Duke. More than I ever would have thought possible. Sometimes I wonder what might have been if I hadn’t stood you up that first night. If maybe we could have really had something and I just lost my chance. Before the night all this started, that had been my greatest regret, but not anymore. (Duke blinked in shock and he re-read that part over again. And then a third time. Trying to make it make sense. She had been the one to pull away. She had been the one to walk away. Then she had come back and confessed her love to Nathan. He just didn’t get it, but he knew he needed to. He had to figure it out. He would just have to wait until she woke up.)  
I could never forget the look of betrayal in your eyes as I put those handcuffs on you that night. I see it every time I close my eyes. I was so afraid that my love for you would end up making me a dirty cop that I became something even worse. I will never forgive myself for hurting you, Duke. I know you don’t believe that and I can’t blame you. Your trust was the most precious gift you could ever have given me and I just stomped on it like it was nothing in a stupid impulsive act.   
I need you to know that I don’t regret what I did after that. Becoming a dirty cop was always my biggest fear, but it was a far less crime than what I did to you and I never regretted it for a second. Only that I made it necessary, and it was necessary. I could never have lived with myself if I was the cause of you going to jail, Duke. When Nathan was still going to give me that stupid commendation, I had to come clean with him. I admitted to stealing the evidence to get you off. I thought he would arrest me instead and I would have deserved it. I almost wish he would have. It would have given me some way to serve penance. Not for stealing the evidence, but for arresting you in the first place.   
I don’t blame you for hating me, Duke. Please believe that. You have every right to hate me and never want to see me again. The fact that you didn’t immediately kick me off your property and tell me that is proof that you are a good and honorable man. The fact that you’ve been polite and cordial to me since is even more proof of that. You would have been well within your rights to despise me and treat me like trash and I wouldn’t have blamed you a bit. Honestly, it might have made me feel better. To take some kind of punishment for it. (God how badly he had wished he could hate her. He wished it could have been that easy. He never could though. Especially not now. After all this.)  
Sometimes I wondered if you didn’t just because you didn’t care. Because I never mattered enough to you for it to bother you, but then I close my eyes and I see that look. I see how broken you were when I arrested you. And there have been a few times since that your façade has slipped just enough for me to see the pain you’re hiding behind it and then I hate myself even more for putting it there. It probably sounds stupid after how long I’ve been trying to get you to not hate me, but I’m glad you do now. Please keep hating me Duke. Don’t grieve for me. I don’t deserve it and you don’t deserve any more pain on my account. I’ve never done anything but hurt you, and I can’t do it anymore. (Stupid woman. Like her dying could ever do anything but destroy him even more.)   
One last thing before I go. Thank you for stopping me tonight. I hadn’t realized how far I’d fallen until I saw the disgust in your eyes. I could never have lived with myself if I’d gone through with it. I still would have ended up here, but I would have sacrificed the last of my dignity I had left in the process. Thank you for saving that for me. (It bothered him that all she’d seen was his disgust. He couldn’t deny that it was there, but there had been so much more there too. He was glad that he would get the chance to tell her that and he knew even more that she deserved to know why. No matter how much he hated talking about it.)  
Goodbye, Duke. I hope you have the wonderful life you deserve. I hope you find everything that makes you happy. I love you.   
~Audrey

Duke folded the letter back up, setting it gently on the end table as he wiped the tears from his eyes. “I love you too, Audrey,” he whispered, running his hand through her hair. “We’ll get it all worked out somehow. I promise.”


	9. Chapter 9

Duke spent the next while just sitting there, running a hand through Audrey’s hair as he tried to figure out what to do from here and how to handle it. Even with all this he couldn’t just jump right back into trusting her, despite so much of him wishing that he could. He knew he was screwed up and damaged in ways that would probably never be fixed. He also knew that he couldn’t be with her if he couldn’t trust her. That would end up being a disaster and would break them both for good. He even knew that if they got into that discussion that going back would be all but impossible. 

He would have to lie to her then. It was the only way. Let her think he only read the opening of the letter. Enough to know what she was doing. Then they could start rebuilding from scratch. They both needed to fix themselves and their friendship first before they could even discuss having more. It was the only chance they had to make it. Once they were back to where they were before this whole mess started, he could tell her the truth and just hope she understood. And hope it wasn’t too late for them. 

By the time he’d come to that conclusion, he realized that the washing machine was finished and he eased her head off his lap, replacing his leg with a pillow, as he got up to move the clothes and sheets to the dryer. Apparently his movement woke Audrey though because she was sitting up in confusion when he came back. “Duke? What…how…” She stopped sitting up and pulled the blanket she was cocooned in back and looked down. “Why…”

“I promise I didn’t do anything untoward,” he assured her, not at all surprised that she didn’t remember waking up last time. “I had to induce vomiting and we were both a little…messy,” he said with a grimace.

“That’s why you’re…” she gestured to his bare top half. 

“Yeah, I just put the clothes in the dryer, so I’ll be able to get dressed once it’s done,” he told her. “I can step out and give you some privacy to get dressed,” he offered. 

“No, it’s fine. You paid for it after all,” she said disgusted with herself as the memories came rushing back. 

“I absolutely did not,” Duke said harshly, turning away as she dropped the blanket and walked to her closet. Normally he would have playfully snuck a peek, but definitely not after that comment. “If anything, I paid for the opposite.” 

Audrey winced as she realized how much that had offended him and she just threw on the easiest thing she could find and walked over, putting a hand on his arm. “You’re right. I’m sorry. That comment was meant towards me, not you.” 

“I know,” Duke sighed. “That’s just…a difficult subject for me. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” 

“Duke, you have every right to snap at me. About so /many/ things,” she told him as she realized that he hadn’t turned around yet. “You can turn back around. I’m dressed.” 

Once he had turned back around he noticed that she was swaying a bit on her feet and he reached out to grab her elbows to steady her and helped her back to the couch to sit down. “Let me make you something to eat. You’re probably still feeling the effects of the overdose.”

“Duke, stop,” she said sadly. “You don’t have to…I mean…”

“Shh,” Duke said gently, brushing her hair back and letting his hand trail down her cheek. “Just let me do this and then we should talk.” 

“I didn’t do this to get your pity or to make you feel like you have to…”

“I know,” Duke cut her off. “I was already coming up here to talk to you anyway. How do you think I made it in time?” 

“Oh god…the note…did you read it?” she asked with wide fearful eyes. 

“Just the first few lines. Enough to know what you were doing. Then I was more worried about saving you,” he lied. 

“Okay. Good,” she let out a sigh of relief as he headed to the kitchen. 

He looked around for a bit with a frown. “Is it going to be safe to leave you here to run down to the boat for a few minutes?” 

“Yeah. I promise I won’t do anything,” Audrey assured him. It wasn’t like she was likely to have time anyway and she was already out of pills. Not to mention she was a little curious about what he wanted to talk about even before this. 

“Okay, I’ll be right back,” he assured her, and sure enough he was only gone for about ten minutes, having grabbed a shirt while he was down there. And a spare coat. “Here, take a couple of these,” he said handing her a pill bottle. “A /couple/,” he emphasized. 

“What are they?” she asked curiously, already tipping two into her hand and she swallowed them before he even answered. 

Duke was a little bowled over by that show of trust, but still answered her anyway. “Charcoal tablets. They soak up toxins in your stomach. I always keep them on the boat just in case I eat something bad while at sea. Or if I get stung or bit by something venomous I can dissolve them and use them for that too.” 

“Makes sense,” she nodded as he threw a few steaks on the stove and then started on some quick sides. “I’m sorry about the mess,” she had to say. 

“Not the first time I’ve been puked on and probably won’t be the last,” Duke brushed it off with a chuckle. 

Audrey couldn’t help the smile that twitched onto her face. That was the kind of quippy response she would have gotten before everything fell apart. It definitely wasn’t the coolly polite demeanor that she was used to for the last few months. “I take it I messed up the bed too?” she gestured to the stripped down bed. 

“Yeah, I didn’t know how much time I had so I wasn’t going to waste time moving you,” he shrugged. “I didn’t know where you kept the spare bedding and figured it would be rather rude to start snooping around to find it…Don’t even think about it,” he added firmly when she started to get up, presumably to do just that. “You sit and rest.”

Audrey deflated back to the couch, letting her head fall against the back of it. She did feel extremely weak right now, so she wasn’t going to argue with him. “I feel like I should be thanking you for saving me, but…at the same time I kinda wish you hadn’t.”

“I know,” Duke said understandingly. “I’ve been there too, you know,” he admitted. 

“Really?” she asked surprised. She couldn’t see him ever being that messed up. Not in that way at least. She knew he was messed up in other ways. “Please tell me not because of me…”

“No, it was a long time ago,” Duke assured her. Yet another subject he hated talking about, but knew she needed to hear. “It wasn’t long before I got the Cape Rouge actually.”

“What happened?” she asked curiously. 

“I was on a job that went bad. Really bad. It was before I found the lines I wouldn’t cross. Four people ended up dead. Three innocents and one of my crew. I didn’t pull a trigger, but I was still there and the guilt ate at me for…a long time. Until I tried to end it the only way I could think of.”

“How?” she asked, doubting that he chose pills. 

“I jumped off a bridge. High enough up that hitting the water would knock me unconscious. If I was going to die, it was going to be water. I didn’t realize that anyone else was around. The guy that fished me out ended up being a monk at a nearby Buddhist temple.”

“And that’s how you got into Buddhism,” Audrey realized. 

“Yeah. I stayed with them for a few months and they taught me better ways to manage my guilt. Helped me find my own code to live by,” he told her. 

“I’m glad he saved you,” she said sincerely. 

“So am I now. I wasn’t so much then,” Duke told her, getting the conversation back around to where it started. “So I do understand you not thanking me for it.”


	10. Chapter 10

Audrey just nodded not sure what else to say to that. She wanted to ask him to help her that way too, but she couldn’t take it if he said no. It would send her right back off the deep end. “Did he know what happened? Why you felt guilty?” 

“Yeah. I told him everything in the hopes that he would kick me to the curb and let me go right back to the bridge.”

“But he didn’t.”

“No. He said the fact that I felt so guilty in the first place meant that there was too much good in me. I still don’t know how much I agree with that, but…”

“He was right,” Audrey said earnestly. “No matter what you’ve done or do, you’re still a good man, Duke. I don’t think anything can change that and never let anyone tell you otherwise.” 

Duke gave her a shaky smile as he moved the food to plates and took them to the couch before going to get two tall glasses of water. “Why did you never ask me for a job?” he asked her, partially to change the subject and partially getting to the conversation he wanted to have. 

“I didn’t want to put you in that position,” she said sadly. “And I didn’t think I could handle hearing you say no. W-would you have?” 

“Honestly? I don’t know,” he admitted. “At first definitely, but later…I don’t know. Now though…”

“Duke, don’t. I don’t want you to just pretend to care just because of this. Because you think…”

“Audrey,” he cut her off gently. “I’m not /pretending/ to care.” 

“But…” she trailed off confused trying to make sense of what he was implying. 

“You don’t know this, but once you downgraded your car, I always stayed up all night a couple times a week to work on it in secret. Trying to keep it running as long as I could,” he said hesitantly. “On your birthday…the free meals at the Gull…they were from me. I made Dave say they were from him so you wouldn’t know. You didn’t look like you’d been eating well, and I was worried about you.” 

“You…” Audrey couldn’t find any more words and just blinked at him, trying to wrap her head around that. 

“I never didn’t care, Audrey. I just didn’t want you to know so that you couldn’t try and use it against me again.” 

“I…get that,” Audrey said, swallowing around the lump in her throat. “I wish there was something I could say to convince you that I would never do that again. For anything.”

“Me too,” Duke said softly. “I /want/ to get back what we had. But I just…I don’t know if I can. Maybe we can just start with a job and see where it goes from there?” 

“Okay. We can do that,” Audrey said, tears filling her eyes again. She just couldn’t believe that she was actually getting a chance to fix this. It would still take time, obviously, and there were no guarantees, but it was a chance. “But you have to take your money back.” 

“I don’t need it…”

“And I don’t want it. Not like that. It’s just a reminder of…of what I almost did and…I just…”

“Okay,” Duke said gently, reaching out to rub her arm soothingly. “Okay, I’ll take it back. But for this month only, rent is free. And you should know that employees eat free at the Gull.” 

“Thank you,” Audrey said relieved. 

“And I owe you an explanation for my reaction to that,” he said hesitantly, pushing his empty plate away. 

“You don’t owe me anything, Duke,” she shook her head. 

“Yeah. I do,” he said. “Because you need to know that it wasn’t /you/ I was disgusted with. It was…” He took a deep shaky breath before saying wryly, “There was a reason I went downstairs to get smashed before coming up here to talk about this.” 

“I don’t have any booze up here to offer you, unfortunately, but I don’t mind if you need to go downstairs to get some,” Audrey offered. 

“No, I’ll manage,” he said as he steadied himself. “My mother was a hooker. And an addict. She took custody after my Dad died and turned his place into a flop house. With ‘full service’ if you know what I mean.”

“With you there?” she asked horrified. 

“She never cared. She never even noticed half the time,” Duke scoffed. “Social services shut it down after a few months though, but after that the only time I ever saw her was when she came to pick up the welfare checks. I was never anything more than her meal ticket. The key to her next fix. That was all I was ever good for to her.”

“I’m so sorry, Duke,” Audrey said sympathetically. And she thought she had it bad growing up in the system. 

“The worst part though…I ran into her a few years ago in Boston. I was there on a job and walking down the street and I just turned the corner and there she was,” Duke said hauntedly. “She wanted to score some dope off me, but she didn’t have any money…”

“Oh god,” Audrey covered her mouth. 

“I don’t honestly know if she was just that far gone or if she didn’t even recognize me. I choose to believe the latter,” Duke finished. 

Audrey didn’t know which she would rather believe in his shoes. Both options were awful. “So last night when I…” she couldn’t even finish the sentence. 

“I flashed back to her,” Duke told her. “And the idea of you becoming anything like her was…even worse than meeting her in Boston. I couldn’t even…”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, taking the chance to reach out and put a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. 

Duke gave her a shaky smile as he reached up and put his hand over hers giving it a grateful squeeze. “If I had known that it had come to that for you, I would never have turned you away from a job. No matter how I felt about it. I want you to know that.” 

Audrey nodded slowly. “So…about this job…what do you need me to do? When will I be working?”

“Well I know you can’t cook so that’s out,” he teased amusedly and she stuck her tongue out at him. “Can you tend bar? Or I can put you waiting tables or cleaning up…wherever you’re comfortable.” 

“I’ve never tended bar before, but I can learn. And in the meantime, I’ll do whatever else you need,” she assured him. She was most definitely in no position to be picky. 

“Okay, how about for now you can partner with Gemma on Tuesday and Wednesday nights behind the bar since they’re slow enough that she’ll have time to teach you and Thursday, Friday, and Saturday afternoon and evening you can wait tables.” 

“Okay. I can do that. I’ll start tomorrow?” she asked. 

“Audrey, for one thing it’s almost four am now. I am not making you work after being up this late. For two, you need to take at least a day to rest and recover. You can start Friday. Eleven am?” He would give her the lunch rush and the dinner rush. She would need the tips. 

“Okay. I’ll be there. I promise,” she agreed. 

“I don’t doubt that for a second,” he chuckled. She had always been a workaholic after all. “Now…why don’t you tell me where you keep your extra bedding and I’ll make up the bed for you.” 

“I’m feeling a lot better now. I can manage.”

“I’m sure you can, but you scared the hell out of me earlier,” he told her. “It would make me feel better if you let me.”

“On the top shelf of the closet,” she told him. “Left side.”

Duke nodded and went over to get it and had the bed made up in no time. “You’re gonna want to take the big blanket to the laundromat once you wake up. I rinsed it out at least though and it’s hanging in the bathroom. For tonight you’ll have to make do with the quilt.” 

“I’ll manage,” she assured him, as he helped her to the bed. “It’s my own fault after all.”

“You’re sure you’ll be okay?” Duke asked hesitantly halfway to the door. 

“Okay is relative,” she shrugged. “But I can see a light at the end of the tunnel now. I have enough hope that I’ll be able to hold on.” 

“And if that changes…I want you to call me. Day or night. Or come find me. Okay?” 

“I will,” she nodded. “I promise.” 

“Okay,” he said relieved. “And I’m gonna hold you to that promise,” he said firmly, getting another nod in return. “Goodnight, Audrey.”

“Goodnight, Duke,” she all but whispered as he walked out the door and she closed her eyes to get the first halfway decent night’s sleep she’d had in months.


	11. Chapter 11

It was midafternoon when Audrey woke up and she felt like she’d been through the ringer. Her stomach didn’t feel so great either right now. She noticed the charcoal tablets still sitting on the table and wondered if she should take some more so she picked up her phone to call Duke. “Morning sleepyhead,” he teased lightly as he answered. 

Audrey chuckled, more glad than she could say at the confirmation that last night wasn’t a dream. That he really was willing to try and fix things. “Morning,” she replied. “I was wondering…should I take a few more of the charcoal tablets or do you think I’m good now?”

“You’re probably good now, but it wouldn’t hurt anything to take a couple more just to be safe,” Duke told her. 

“Okay, thanks. And I’ll bring them by your boat on the way to the laundromat if you’re there?”

“I’m here, and I can drive you to the laundromat. I need to handle a few things in town and I’m sure that big blanket will be a pain on your bicycle,” Duke offered. 

“I would really appreciate that, Duke. Thank you,” Audrey said relieved. “I’ll be ready in about an hour?”

“Works for me,” Duke told her before he hung up and then took a few deep breaths for calm. Talking about moving forward in the dead of night when emotions and adrenaline were running high and actually taking that step in the light of day were two very different things. The fact that he was now almost positive that she wasn’t trying to play him meant that he had to at least try. 

By the time she came downstairs lugging the giant blanket with her, Duke had himself together and had his game face on. As they got in the truck she asked, not sure if she really wanted an answer, “Do you really have stuff to do in town today?” 

“Yes and no,” Duke shrugged. “I do have things I should do that I’ve been putting off, but nothing that absolutely has to be done now.”

“Well I still appreciate it,” she said with a nervous smile. 

“You’re welcome,” Duke replied. “And I want you to know…I have no intention of becoming your chauffer, but when you have something that’s too big or bulky to take your bike for, you can always ask for a ride. I can’t promise I’ll always be able to drop everything and do it, but if you’re able to wait until I’m free…”

“Thank you, Duke. And I would never ask you to become my chauffer anyway,” she assured him. 

“So, I have to ask…would Nathan really not give you a job or you just didn’t ask him?” Duke wondered. 

“Both,” Audrey admitted. “I haven’t spoken to Nathan since the day I got my new phone and called him with the number right after I left. He wouldn’t give me a job though. You didn’t see how pissed he was when he found out that I stole the evidence to get you off. He wouldn’t even let me be alone in the building and stood over me while I packed by desk and then escorted me to the door.”

“Yeah, I guess I can get that,” Duke admitted with a wince. When he suggested it before he hadn’t realized that Nathan knew about that part. She really had lost /everything/ with that incident and now that he knew that it wasn’t a setup to get him to trust her, he felt bad for her. And guilty for the way he’d been treating her. 

The rest of the drive was spent with small talk as they both tried to find their new footing before he dropped her at the laundromat and then headed off to pick up the new parts for his boat. He was done before she was so he stopped to pick up some dinner for both of them and took it back to the laundromat for them to eat together before he took her home. 

The next morning, Audrey walked into the Gull dressed for work at ten fifty to find Duke polishing some glasses behind the bar and he took a break to show her around from an employee perspective and explain what would be expected of her. Their first stop was obviously the time clock which was the old-fashioned punch card type and so very Duke. Audrey would be working ten hour shifts on Friday and Saturday from eleven am to ten pm with a lunch break from three to four between the lunch and dinner rush to maximize her tips. Thursdays she would work twelve noon to nine pm with the same lunch break and then three to nine on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to learn the bar. 

Duke didn’t believe in paying waitresses and bartenders less due to tips so she, along with the rest of the staff, made minimum wage plus their tips. And half of them, including Audrey, were paid under the table anyway. Audrey wasn’t at all surprised that Duke was a great employer. In addition to paying well, he was always so friendly and open with the staff. He never had a problem if someone needed a day off, even with little notice and their loyalty to him because of that made them not take advantage of it. Audrey settled in well there and soon found her money problems disappeared.

It took Audrey about three weeks before she was ready to become a full time bartender, but still picked up a few waitressing shifts too, usually during lunch when the bar was closed. She was eating more and better too, partially to having one restaurant cooked meal a day, and partially due to having more money for groceries at home. She was finally starting to put back on some of the weight she’d lost and looking less like a skeleton. She still missed her old job. Being a cop had been a calling for her, but she was happy. She didn’t regret choosing Duke over her job for a second. Even when things had been bad between them she still felt like she’d made the right choice and she did have fun with her new job too.

Duke and Audrey were getting along better too. There were still backslides along the way. He got a little too prickly when she asked the wrong questions without meaning to and she tended to retreat into herself when he did. Duke had picked up their old habit though and started bringing her coffee in the mornings to make up and talk things out. It was slow going though. Duke’s trust issues weren’t easy to work through, nor was Audrey’s depression, but they were making progress. 

It was six months after they had started to renew their friendship when Duke realized that he actually did trust her again. They had been chatting on the Cape Rouge when Duke got a call from the restaurant that one of the cooks had been hurt and he had to run up and handle things and didn’t think twice about leaving Audrey alone there. Audrey realized the significance though and kept her butt firmly in her seat while he was gone. Even once her drink was empty. She wasn’t taking any chances of him even /thinking/ she was snooping around. It wasn’t until he got back that he realized what he’d done and the fact that he didn’t even feel tempted to give her the third degree about what she’d done while he was gone told him that it was time. 

He took her empty drink to refill it while he got his thoughts together and tried to figure out where to start before he brought it back to her and plopped back down in his normal seat next to her. “Everything okay at the Gull?” she asked, not realizing that something had changed. 

“Yeah, Tina sliced her arm open and it’s gonna need stitches, but the rush is over so the rest of the crew can handle things for the night. The ambulance just left with her, but she’ll be okay,” Duke told her absentmindedly before an abrupt change of subject. “Why did you stop in Colorado?” 

Audrey blinked for a second to catch up with the subject change before she shrugged and looked down. “I could tell you were hesitant. You wanted to stop…”

“No, I didn’t,” Duke cut her off. “I mean, yeah, I was scared and all, but…I didn’t want to stop.”

“Scared?” she asked confused. “Why?” 

“Because you’d already broken my heart once when you stood me up and I was afraid…” Duke trailed off, not sure how to finish that sentence. “But then one second you were there and everything was…amazing…and then you were gone and walking away and I just…never really understood it.” 

Audrey sighed sadly at the realization of yet another mistake she’d made. “I’m sorry, Duke. I…I misunderstood what I was sensing from you and…I mean…I did try though. I told you that there wasn’t enough time to fix our friendship if I screwed up. If I made the wrong choice there. I waited for you to tell me what it was you wanted…”

“I didn’t know what you were waiting for,” he told her. “I thought it was safer to just keep my mouth shut.” 

“Where is all this coming from? Why now?” she asked feeling a concurrent fear and hope coursing through her. 

“I…you need to know…I did read the whole letter that night,” Duke admitted. 

“And you lied to me about it?” she asked hurt. “Why?”

“Because…if I hadn’t we would have had this conversation then and…and there would have been no going back, but I wasn’t ready yet. /We/ weren’t ready yet,” Duke explained. 

“Yeah…I guess I get that,” Audrey conceded the point. “But…ready for what exactly?” she asked, getting lost in his eyes as her breath was stolen from her body. 

“For this,” Duke said in a whisper before leaning forward kiss her slowly and tenderly. It was pretty much the opposite of the Colorado kiss which had been pure passion and desire. It didn’t last long though before he pulled back. “Assuming it’s not too late for us,” he asked nervously. 

“It could never be too late,” Audrey breathed out, still in a daze. “I…I love you, Duke.” 

“I love you too, Audrey. I always have. That was why it all hurt so much,” he told her, needing her to understand that he hadn’t been an ass for no reason. 

“I wish I could promise that I’ll never hurt you again,” she said sadly, brushing her hand down his cheek. “But I can promise it will never be like that.” 

“I know,” he said with a soft smile, leaning his forehead against hers. “And we’ll probably both hurt each other many times. That’s just life. But I know now that you won’t actually betray me again. And I hope you know that I would never betray you either.” 

“I do,” she said in a whisper before leaning forward to capture his lips again. When he lifted her up to carry her to his bedroom, she felt like the luckiest person in the world, not knowing that he was feeling the same way.


End file.
